National Center for Contemporary Arts, Moscow

catalogue txt

“Stretching, bending and disappearing of the red laser line is caused by the vibration of the sound transferred into the water aluminium bowl. The every gentle vibration of water sound waves is immediately reflected by the laser line beam and is projected on the opposite wall. The balance is the keyword… The sounds are made from abstract granularized fragments of the politicians’ and state leaders’ speeches. Each word affects the transformation of the red line. Sometimes it seems that no concrete line exists, sometimes its clear and stable. This installation symbolically deals with the relativity, objectivity and complexity. Suchánek is using his own developed cymatic system. The perceived sound composition is made exactly for this symbolic laboratorium. Picture is strictly analogod, the sound strictly digitall. Dialogue begins. Hopefully…”

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About

Term “Red line” in diplomatic language is used to express the situation of no return in a conflict. The tension between Europe, Russia, USA and IS can be felt now very clearly. The testing of the “red line” is the topic of the work. I select 30min speeches of the state leaders ( Putin, Obama, Merkel, Baghdadi – even he is not any state leader…) and my algorithm randomly selects 1 second from the one randomly chosen speech. The mix of the meanings is reproduced into the speaker under the water bowl. Each word somehow transforms the red line shape…

When I was invited to Moscow to prepare installation for the exhibition Dialogues of Sound and Light at NCCA I was sure I will create something special for the Russia situation. This work is my first one related to political theme – even it is still quite abstract work…I knew I will have to do something critical. It was also kind of test how Russia gallery and public will react because I used voices of state leaders including Putin in this work. Reaction was surprisingly open and I felt that these dialogue was awaited.

Quite big discussion was also about the participating on a Russia exhibition and by this act making kind of legitimation of the Putin regime. Even this is just very very small part of the big game I decided to participate from several reasons including my curiosity about the present situation and atmosphere in Moscow. The main reason to participate is that specially in these days when Russia intelligence is becoming very important the isolation from the Europe culture is the worst way to improve this “fucked up situation” how called it during the vernissage curator Olof van Winden from Todays Art.

I had the dream when I was working on the installation : I met the Putin in the trolley and he was the inspector – I didn’t have the ticket. But I talked to him and I felt like he is a friend (…). We travelled to last station and he wanted to find a school there, but he was lost. I showed him the way between the block of flats. Quite idealistic and optimistic dream…

IN BLUE

technology

The deep bass sound is played into the speaker placed under the bowl with water. The sound vibration is transferred into the water. The red line laser is aimed into the water and reflected from the surface vibration to the opposite wall – this makes kind of visualization of the sound (physically slowed down thanks to the dynamics of the water molecules).

This system is controlled from my max/msp patch. Random sequencing is triggering 1sec fragments from sound files with politician speeches. The fragments are played around each 10 sec. The deep bass sound is playing nonstop. When politician is triggered, the bass sound slightly changes tuning and the color + intensity of the top rgb led is changed. Occasionally the second and direct laser line beam flashes to the projection wall together with high frequency beep sound. The another sound system is placed in the room to fill the room with the strong bass and intelligible sound.